From: 69jpil69@gmail.com   
      
   On Wed, 3 Sep 2025 11:01:15 +0100, Ernest Major   
   <{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:   
      
   >On 02/09/2025 19:46, sticks wrote:   
   >> On 9/2/2025 11:08 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:   
   >>> On 8/30/25 1:54 PM, sticks wrote:   
   >>>> On 8/27/2025 9:05 PM, RonO wrote:   
   >>>>> https://scienceandculture.com/2025/08/woodpecker-is-a-stunning-    
   >>>>> example- of-irreducible-complexity/   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Someone just mentioned Karl Crawford recently, and the ID perps are    
   >>>>> resurrecting that old creationist argument.  They are calling it an    
   >>>>> example of irreducible complexity, but that is a lie so they put it    
   >>>>> in their new Culture category instead of their Science category, and    
   >>>>> it is a talk given at their Science and Faith conference, so it was    
   >>>>> just something to fool the religious creationist rubes with.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> That's a hell of a way to begin a post.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> ---snip---   
   >>>> [...]   
   >>>> He attacks the ID people for not producing some science that shows    
   >>>> the example is irreducibly complex.  I'm sure someone would have an    
   >>>> experiment they could do to try and accomplish that . . .   
   >>>   
   >>> Another problem, though, is that irreducible complexity is evidence    
   >>> *for* evolution and *against* ID.  There are multiple common    
   >>> mechanisms by which irreducible complexity can evolve, but such    
   >>> complexity violates engineering principles of keeping things as simple    
   >>> as possible and of having backup systems.   
   >>    
   >> Just learning how things work here in T.O.   
   >> So things really are not irreducibly complex, but if they are it is    
   >> evidence for evolution.   
   >> Got it.  Thanks   
   >>    
   >> ---snip   
   >>    
   >   
   >Behe may have thought that he had an objective means of identifying    
   >systems that could not have evolved, but he was wrong; using the    
   >original definition of an irreducibly complex system as one which    
   >requires all of its parts to function, there are at least three broad    
   >classes of paths by which irreducibly complex systems can evolve.   
   >   
   >An additional issue is finding objective definitions of system, part and    
   >function. Divide a system into few parts, and it's more likely to be    
   >irreducibly complex; divide a system into many parts, and it's less    
   >likely to be irreducibly complex. Consider an eukaryote cell as composed    
   >of the nucleus, the cytoplasm and the cell membrane; looking at it in    
   >that way it seems irreducibly complex (until you notice that mammalian    
   >erythrocytes and thrombocytes lack nuclei). But consider it as an    
   >assemblage of nucleic acids, proteins and lipid membranes; then many    
   >parts can be removed, and it continues to function, i.e. is not    
   >irreducibly complex.   
   >   
   >A third issue is that suitably defined a system may be irreducibly    
   >complex in one species but may not have the same set of parts as the    
   >same system in another species. The clotting cascade is an example of    
   >this; it puzzles me why Behe thought that was a good poster system for    
   >his argument.   
   >   
   >As for the more general argument from complexity - the "it's oh so    
   >complex, it must be designed" - that an argument from incredulity. I    
   >look at the Heath-Robinson Rube Goldberg nature of life, and my reaction    
   >is "there's no way that's designed". (Why should you incredulity be more    
   >dispositive that mine?)   
   >   
   >(I think Dawkins is wrong when he writes that "life has the appearance    
   >of design".)   
      
      
   FWIW Dawkins writes that in recognition of the teleological argument's   
   appeal to IDists, to illustrate his counterpoint that such appearance   
   is illusory and not based on fact.   
      
      
   >You can get over the evolutionary argument from complexity by    
   >postulating an unconstrained designer. The problem with that,    
   >epistemologically, is that you're no longer explaining the observations;    
   >instead you're explaining them away.   
      
   --    
   To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge   
      
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